Looking at the 13" Ultimate Air but worried about the fan noise threads...

[MacFever]

I am a poweruser too when it comes to browsing etc...I could have at times 20+ tabs in FireFox open plus other apps.

I use Flashblock Add-On in FireFox which stops flash from autostarting. this is a big help in saving cpu cycles..and also battery time.

I don't like youtube video's to autostart but prefer to load it when I'm ready to view it. works great on all sites..

 

[G5isAlive]

I'm thinking of waiting for the next MBA rev then and see if SB improves things. I saw one thread where it was stated the next rev was expected in June but then another thread stated no hardware announcements at June WWDC so I'm not sure. I can have 30+ tabs going in chrome (no flash blocking enabled or anything), VPN, itunes, misc. background apps and my 15" i5 makes no sounds whatsoever.

Thanks guys. <crosses fingers for June MBA refresh>

Not sure what waiting is going to accomplish. Revs are usually conservative with minor changes. The fan issue is not a flaw but physics in action. Power use = heat dissipation. Small thin form factor with limited heat sink means fan. I would be surprised if a mid year rev changes that.

Having said that, I own a 13" ultimate air and the ONLY time I hear the fan is when playing World of Warcraft. Otherwise, you are aware its a small screen yes? That in itself tends to limit the number of practical web pages (20 -30 tabs?!). and if you have iTunes running music will mask a lot of sound (thats through a stereo or headphones right?)

When the fan comes on during WoW, it is audible. But then, headphones takes care of that.

Not convinced? Go to an apple store and play with one. Load whatever on a USB drive and plug it in, click click click and you will have your tabs up. Except they may not have flash loaded. I know I don't.

 

[magbarn]

I still don't understand why many people still won't give undervolting/coolbook a try. My MBA 13 ultimate runs super stable with all the speed settings at 0.925V (which is the lowest possible setting). Even with VMware running win7 in the background and flash websites, the fans barely pick up as the lower voltage=lower heat. The only time it becomes audible is during handbrake conversion or WoW sessions. Even my 2011 MBP 15 2.2 gets much louder than my MBA as there is currently no way to undervolt the sandy bridge cpu in software.

 

[Kafka]

I have the 13" ultimate too and the fan can only be heard in 2 situations:
- flash videos
- World of Warcraft (the only game I play, except for Minecraft sometimes but no fan issue there)

However I managed to greatly reduce fan noise in WoW:

- Activate fps sync (or whatever that's called)
- Select default settings (slide bar on GOOD)
- Set shadows and water reflections to LOW
Then type /console maxfps 30

I maybe also lowered texture projections, I can't remember and I'm not home right now.
The decisive setting is the maxfps thing, it changes everything.
With these settings the fan is still spinning, but very quietly. The only times it gets a bit louder is when I'm flying.

Please note that I'm not playing high level yet, still leveling my new toon (got my previous account banned due to buying gold, and haven't played for 2 years).

 

[Scottsdale]

Doesn't matter what you have "open" I can open 30 tabs, word, excel, outlook, powerpoint, ichat, garageband, itunes, quicktime, photoshop and whatever else you want open and still have nearly idle CPU usage. All that does is increase your memory usage which is not going to generate heat. Do something that actually needs significant amount of CPU, or better yet, CPU and GPU usage and you WILL hear the fan loud and clear.

The folks complaining of fan noise aren't doing so because of their imagination. I own an MBA and have worked on about a half dozen other 13" MBA. Every single one, without exception was VERY audible when under load. I was skyping with my cousin who recently got an MBA and after a few minutes of video chat he said "dude, my laptop is about to take off" due to the ever increasing fan noise. This coming from a guy who built PCs using 6000RPM delta fans a few years back so he's pretty tolerant of noise.

Lot of nonsense. If the browser has Flash or other plugins, most websites have plenty of code to run. The best way to really get an MBA going is 30 browser tabs with the average number of Flash ads heating it up.... a heck of a lot more than RAM is being used!

 

[2IS]

Lot of nonsense. If the browser has Flash or other plugins, most websites have plenty of code to run. The best way to really get an MBA going is 30 browser tabs with the average number of Flash ads heating it up.... a heck of a lot more than RAM is being used!

"IF" you have flash and "IF" the site is loading a flash applet and "IF" you can somehow get all those ads showing on the screen at the same time, which you can't. Sorry, but that's far from the best and much closer to the worst way to put a load on.

I've got a much better, practical, not to mention easier way of getting it going. Video chat on Skype. Done.

 

[DarwinOSX]

Block flash so you only run it when you really have to. Other than that fan noise is very minimal for me.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

Most people who don't hear any fan noise on the 13" MBA (or the 11" MBA for that matter, I had both units for some time) really aren't doing much more with them than basic computing tasks.

Both my 11" netbook model and the 13" MBA would rev up the fans doing basic code compiling, lightweight video rendering, gaming of almost any kind, Skype (a known CPU hog) or just about anything that pushes the CPU and/or GPU in some fashion.

Seriously, if the fan noise bothers you in any way, I'd say stay away from MOST Mac laptops. Even my 2010 15" MBP's fans will rev up pretty loud doing the same tasks.

 

[jayo123456]

Remember, the people complaining about the fan noise are some of the most ANAL people around. They've never been around an old PC obviously.

My God fan noise, oh nO!!!!!!

I don't have the ultimate 13" but I have the 13" MBA and the fannoise is so minimal at times.

Jesus Christ people.

Get it, you will love it!

why are you subjecting your opinion on others?
some people like pizza, some like pie...what's wrong with that?


p.s. I'm anal about fan noise because I do alot of reading on a computer.




to OP:

30 tabs, with flash and your RPm will be 6k+ (ie superloud).

I got clicktoflash, latest flash build, ran in safari ...... with this combination, I can ran youtube vids, or not excessive amounts of flash, with zero fan noise.

 

[scyon]

FWIW I have a late 2010 13" MBA Ultimate. When playing games I find that it's quieter than my Mac Mini (early 2009).